The Peabody Awards

Awards

The truism that television is a visual medium was confirmed in this report. But here the visual component consisted primarily of a set of still photographs that shocked viewers throughout the world and raised questions that are in many instances still open. Preparation of the report began long before it was aired. Details were checked. A court martial investigation was in process prior to the presentation of the report. 60 Minutes II became the first news organization to... read more

This vibrant documentary, narrated by the critically-acclaimed Kathy Bates, looks at why one of the world’s most ubiquitous products has become a cultural icon. At the center of the narrative are two dynamic, quirky characters: the ambitious but reclusive Earl Tupper, who invented Tupperware, and his flamboyant female business associate, Brownie Wise, who figured out how to sell it. The self-taught Wise, the first woman to appear on the cover of Business Week, encouraged women to believe in... read more

Cuban refugee rafters—“balseros”—fled by the thousands in 1994 after Fidel Castro opened up Cuba’s coastal borders to those who wished to leave the country. This documentary passionately traces, over the course of seven years, the lives of seven of those refugees. We follow them from the building of their rafts to their attempts at building new lives in America. In chronicling the bittersweet dreams of families torn apart, and in some cases reunited, these interwoven stories show the... read more

In this tribute to Beah Richards—amazing actress, writer, director, poet, teacher, musician, and activist—LisaGay Hamilton takes us on a journey through Richards’ life and times. At eighty and in her final years, Richards uses this documentary to solidify her legacy and challenge those who come after her. Using her life and words from this piece as a stepping-stone, HBO/Cinemax Documentary Films also created an Activity Guide to be used in high schools, colleges, or with community groups. The... read more

Black Sky: Race for Space chronicles the first great aeronautical feat of the 21st century—Burt Rutan`s reinvention of space travel in the form of a privately funded, X-prize winning modern aircraft, SpaceShipOne. Rutan has been called the man who reinvented the airplane. His aeronautical output is astounding; over the past three decades, he has produced one new research airplane per year. Black Sky: Race for Space follows Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites as they build SpaceShipOne... read more

On the surface, Bus 174 is a documentary using real-time media footage to explore events surrounding Sandro do Nascimento’s hijacking of a public bus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, taking eleven hostages at gunpoint. Because of a lack of police barricades, the footage of the hijacking is intense and close, providing viewers with the sense of watching from a nearby street corner. Bus 174, however, does far more than cover the hijacking. It explores many of Brazil’s socio-economic... read more

This investigation by WBAL-TV writer/reporter John Sherman still continues. The story, centered on spillage of raw sewage into creeks and streams feeding into the Chesapeake Bay, was an eye-opener for the citizens of Centreville, Maryland, and neighboring towns. Based on a lead from a concerned citizen, WBAL discovered that a sewage treatment plant, operated by Centreville’s own town manager, was leaking up to hundreds of thousands of gallons of untreated sewage into the bay. Evidence of this leakage... read more

Deadwood, as imagined and created by producer-writer David Milch, exists somewhere between history and fiction, somewhere between civilization and savagery, somewhere between nightmare and dream. Peopled with historical figures such as Wild Bill Hickock (until he draws his fateful “aces and eights” and is killed off in the fourth episode), Calamity Jane and others, this depiction of a frontier mining camp may come as close to physical accuracy as any cinematic version ever constructed. Clothes bear stains of... read more

This six-hour miniseries deals with one of the most pressing problems in today’s version of “the global village,” the movement of refugees throughout the world. The special focus is on attempts by refugees to enter Canada, but the six intertwined stories begin in remote regions and could end in almost any developed country, any city, any rural area. The stories are intensely humanized through the plights of individual characters. But systemic issues also emerge in the frustrations experienced... read more

This 11-part radio documentary, hosted by Susan Sarandon, is an extraordinarily detailed account of Leonard Bernstein’s life and career. In production for more than six years, the programs consider Bernstein not as a classical musician who happened to foray into popular music, but as a musician who embraced the whole range of American musical culture. Through his roles as conductor, educator, and composer of symphonic and theater music, Bernstein responded to and changed the course of music, influencing... read more

This absorbing 13-part radio series is a celebration of the alchemic blend of jazz, gospel, and blues into rock and roll’s predecessor, rhythm and blues. Hosted by Chicago soul legend Jerry “The Iceman” Butler, Let the Good Times Roll draws upon more than 300 interviews, dozens of vintage radio and television broadcasts, historical archives, and 500 songs to bring to life the culture of the sound. Set within the social turbulence of the post World War II era,... read more

Link TV’s MOSAIC: World News from The Middle East offers viewers an in-depth look at the daily news as presented by over 15 national broadcasters in the region. The thirty-minute broadcast, aired Monday through Friday, gives Americans a unique opportunity to view the world from the perspective of people living in the Middle East. From executive producers Kim Spencer, President of Link TV, and Jack Willis, Vice President of Programming, MOSAIC includes excerpts of newscasts from state-owned and... read more

More than 50 individual reports and two documentaries contributed to NewsChannel 5’s three-year investigation of former Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist. The investigative team’s persistent reporting on the awarding of hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts to the former governor’s friends ended in a federal fraud conviction of a Sundquist administration appointee. Dedicated to their mission of “serving the public as a watchdog of their tax dollars,” the NewsChannel 5 team was the first to expose the... read more

Nursery Tap, Hip to Toe is a delightful children’s program that manages to introduce young children to the world of performing arts through the use of familiar (and sometimes not-so-familiar) nursery rhymes. Narrowing down the hundreds of available rhymes that have been passed down orally for centuries to a precious few (thirty, to be exact), Nursery Tap‘s creator/producer/director/vocalist Juleen Murray Shaw, with the assistance of associate producer/dancer Brynn Bromley, tinkered with the traditional oration of these rhymes to... read more

For one hour each Saturday, On the Media hosts Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone take listeners of 185 National Public Radio stations on an insightful journey into the inner workings and outer effects of the media. In a world where a handful of corporations own all of the major media outlets and the need for media literacy is ever increasing, this show provides candid and straightforward examinations of those whose job is to provide the facts of the... read more

“My own attitude is that my job was simply to get my hands on the best creative people, help them in any way that they required, but not to try to legislate what they did or how they did it; just simply to get them into the tent and let them do their thing.”—Grant Tinker, 1983. From radio to advertising to television networks, from studio head to network CEO, Grant Tinker has often been at the center of... read more

In 1994, the small African country of Rwanda was awash in blood. Extremists in the majority Hutu controlled government organized a systematic genocide of Rwanda’s minority Tutsi population. In just 100 days, more than 800,000 were murdered—an estimated seventy-five percent of Rwanda’s Tutsis. The atrocity was halted ten years ago, but for Rwandans, the ordeal does not yet have an ending. Today, the physical scars sustained by survivors are fading, but the emotional scars still remain. Rwanda—Do Scars... read more

Univision’s television, radio, and on-line health-education initiative is a truly impressive cross-platform public service campaign. Designed to improve the quality of life by promoting healthier lifestyles, the campaign uses an array of media and services to reach a growing audience with crucial information. Begun in November 2003, the campaign continued throughout the following year, encouraging illness prevention and providing motivational encouragement for early detection of health problems. Univision television and radio stations across the country partnered with non-profit... read more

Something the Lord Made is the story of two men, Dr. Alfred Blalock, an ambitious white surgeon, and Vivien Thomas, a brilliant black carpenter turned lab technician. Together they defied the racial strictures of the Jim Crow south, devised groundbreaking surgical techniques, and pioneered the field of heart surgery. But this film is also the story of two men who come to respect and depend on one another, and in their own way, to love one another. Thomas’... read more

WFAA-TV’s 19-part series State of Denial details questionable practices by state agencies and major insurance companies involved with the Texas workers compensation system. In this long running investigation, which began in 2003, reporter Brett Shipp, investigative producer/executive producer Mark Smith, executive producer for special projects Nann Goplerun, and editor/photographer Kraig Kirchem found state regulators lost sight of their assigned role: “Ensure appropriate and efficient health care for all injured employees.” The series detailed possible fraud and potentially unethical... read more

State of Play explores the tangled relations among three of the most powerful institutions working in today’s complex social world: politics, law enforcement and the media. Set in contemporary Britain, Paul Abbott’s richly textured and tautly plotted thriller could take place in almost any setting. An ambitious member of Parliament, an aggressive investigative journalist who previously served as the politician’s campaign manager and law enforcement officials exploring a series of (apparently) unrelated crimes all end up linked to... read more

In November 2004 Takalani Sesame presents “Talk to Me…” campaign was launched in South Africa. The campaign culminated on December 1st with a one-hour television special featuring three South African families dealing with issues surrounding HIV and AIDS. The purpose of this entire campaign, and of the television special in particular, is to present models for effective communication with which to speak to children of various age groups about the disease. It promotes communication between adults and children,... read more

This exploration of one of the most familiar commercial icons in America—and increasingly in the world—is a deep examination of corporate culture. But Wal-Mart is not just any corporation nor is its culture. From the modest offices at the Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters, to its influence on the Chinese economy, from “the Wal-Mart Cheer” to the fleets of 18-wheelers, this company is as distinctive as it is controversial. CNBC’s documentary chronicles the amazing rise of this enterprise, describes its... read more

With the ever-growing prevalence of deadly cases of school violence and the media’s extensive coverage of these events, The Bully Project stands out, because it takes us inside the world of everyday bullying - the kind that on many occasions has been a catalyst for some of the more widely-covered instances of extreme violence in our schools. Writer/reporter/executive producer Bob Segall’s investigation-turned-community-outreach-program started with a shocking incident of school violence captured on tape. The team’s efforts escalated from... read more

Through the momentous weeks of the 2004 Presidential Campaigns, Jon Stewart and cohorts provided the kind of cathartic satire that deflates pomposity on an equal opportunity basis. Somehow this sharp commentary made the real issues more important than ever. Much has been made of the fact that growing numbers of viewers, old as well as young, turn to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for “news.” Mr. Stewart, however, repeatedly reminds those viewers that his program is “fake... read more

A series of searing reports from BBC journalists Andrew Harding, Ishbel Matheson, Hilary Andersson, Fergal Keane, Nicholas Witchell, Paul Wood, and Bridget Kendal, The Darfur Crisis exposes the tragedy of genocide and racial cleansing in the Darfur region of Sudan. Driven to rebellion by an apparent government-approved attempt by Sudanese Arabs to cleanse the area of black Africans, the blacks of Darfur engage in a struggle for their very survival. Harding and Matheson from the BBC Nairobi bureau... read more

Part scripted comedy, part improvisation, and part genuine interview, The Kumars at No. 42 invites a typical, albeit exaggerated, Indian family to American network television. The fusion of genres never fails to delight as it illustrates the quirks that unite families, regardless of culture, location, or ethnic background. Living in north London, the Kumars have found a unique method of “keeping up with the Joneses”—they have bulldozed their back yard and build a state-of-the-art TV studio from which... read more

This documentary provides an in depth look at one of the most inflammatory words in the English language. It couples history, personal accounts and candid debates about the origins and contemporary use of the N-word. Opening with a montage in which the word is repeatedly uttered, viewers are confronted with powerful and conflicting sounds of hatred and affection. But this program does more than discuss the historical roots of the term; it examines current use in popular culture,... read more

Channel One News reporter, writer, videographer and producer Seth Doane traveled to Sudan to help explain the complexities of Sudan’s civil war and genocide for middle school and high school audiences. His reports are detailed, disturbing and powerfully informative. Seth introduced his student viewers to their counterparts in Sudan and Chad, allowing viewers to learn about the racial component of the conflict, the scarcity of natural resources, the terror, and the harsh realities of war on children. The... read more

Despite assignment in a country riddled with car bombings, mortar attacks, sniper fire and kidnappings, NPR correspondents Anne Garrels, Ivan Watson, Deborah Amos, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, Emily Harris, Peter Kenyon, Phillip Reeves, Eric Westervelt, Tom Gjelten, and Mike Shuster continued to document the turbulent aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. These experienced correspondents from the NPR foreign desk covered the stories of the Sunni and Shia uprisings, the bitter battles between insurgents and U.S. forces, the state of... read more

A public-radio institution since 1992, To the Best of Our Knowledge remains the consummate audio magazine of ideas and oddities for people with curious minds. Each one-hour show assiduously explores its subject through an entertainingly diverse array of guests. In the spirit of a radio salon, host Jim Fleming and fellow interviewers Steve Paulson and Anne Strainchamps facilitate a meeting place of perspectives and opinions. Colorful programming consisting of interviews, performances, and commentary marks this wide-ranging on-air tradition.... read more